The Fever Defense

On June 28th, I'm going to do something I've always wanted to do - play in a live chess tournament. Although I'm probably an average player at best, Ive really gotten into the game lately and it's been far and away my favorite hobby for a while now. I've been trying to read up on the game, and have been playing a lot online, but nothing will be quite like playing face to face with really good players.

The tournament I'm playing in is called the St. Andrews Scholastic Chess Tournament, although I'll be playing in the Open section (not the Scholastic section). I'm really excited to see all of the kids playing chess together. It's going to remind me of all of the fun competitions I took part in as a kid, like Odyssey of the mind, Spelling Bees, Academic Track, etc. Yes, you guessed it, I'm a big nerd. Seriously though, what a great way for kids to exercise their mind, have fun, meet people, and in many cases, do some family bonding. I've noticed that several parent/child teams are going to play in the tournament, which I think is really cool. Hopefully there won't be any people like Joe Mantegna in Searching for Bobby Fischer. I may have to punch a guy like that...although I chuckle when I think of the fact that, having your own parent floundering in the tournament, the chances of getting berated for a tough loss probably go WAY down.

To enter, I had to join the US Chess Federation. So far, I'm the only registered player that doesn't have an official USCF rating. In other words, I'm the only newbie. I'll play four games, no matter what, with each game having a time limit of one hour (30 minutes per player). I'll be delighted if I even draw a game, but four losses will still be fun. I hope to learn and just to enjoy the day.

You can read about the tournament here.

Once I'm done I'll have a provisional rating (read: zero). I'm not sure how many I'd have to play to get an actual rating, but I would guess it'd be something like twenty games. I plan to play in one more tournament before I start my internship in August, so I probably will still be provisional for a long time. I don't think I'll really have time to do this again, at least not for quite a while, but why not enjoy it while I can? I definitely plan to pick it back up when things calm down with school and baby.

I'll be posting updates on here throughout the day to let you know how I'm doing. I can post from my cell phone, so I'll try and include a picture or two.

Nerds unite!
J